


Niki sees

by Kissa



Category: Rush (2013)
Genre: Friends and rivals, Gen, close, guy love between two guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-12
Updated: 2014-03-12
Packaged: 2018-01-15 11:50:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1303858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kissa/pseuds/Kissa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if the heart attack that got James in 1993 was not the first? James and Niki love each other in a way bigger than words and that is just their own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Niki sees

It’s night and Niki lies awake, mulling over the day-long list of pointers he left to the mechanics and calculating how much of it the idiots will fuck up.   
  
Near him, on more than 80% of the bed, James lies unconscious, passed out from partying well into the wee hours.   
  
Niki can very well tune him out and do his mental reviews and he is using that ability right now. However, he is a man of details and his ear easily picks up on irregularities.

James’ breath is shallow and laboured; when Niki looks, he sees the Brit is covered in a sheen of cold sweat and, more worryingly, his lips and fingertips are unusually pale. 

Niki’s mind puts two and two together in record time and he calls the emergency number. He is told a medical team will be with him shortly. But during those long minutes, James could die.   
  
So he does whatever he can, trying to wake James and pushing him onto his back, straddling his hips and massaging his arms and chest with calculated pressure. Not too little so it doesn’t count, not too much so it cracks ribs and adds to the man’s doom.   
  
He doesn’t know what he is doing; all he knows is that a world without James would be a sadder, lonelier one for him. And he’d rather have James call him all the names in the world and hand his ass over to him on the track than wake up knowing that James isn’t there.   
  
Niki fears neither death nor injury. Not his, at least. He fears that one day, one of these things will befall James and he won’t be able to do anything to stop them.   
  
James wakes, struggling to breathe and to stay conscious.    
  
Niki despairs.

Where is that medical crew?

_Bleib wach, du Pissbirne._

Finally, the doctors arrive and help James. 

Niki moves away and gives them room, staring in the emptiness, as though he can see black disappointed wings fluttering away.

James lives to tell the tale, and doesn’t thank Niki formally.   
  
He does it in the only way he knows would matter in Niki’s eyes: by not giving up on who he is, but instead giving up on coke. And perhaps some of the booze.

It gifts them both with several, precious years together.

But in the end, Niki is always right and what he fears always comes true.

(end)  
  


 


End file.
